


Guests and Quests

by femme4jack, Merfilly



Series: Future in the Making [3]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Optimus gets to talk to Chromia, while Ironhide is difficult just by being himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guests and Quests

The isolation bay had been prepped in advance by Red Alert. Optimus Prime walked in, a remote unit for rebooting from stasis in his hand. He would not risk Ratchet being present, nor could he risk being hardwired into another mech with the abilities that the femme class had held. Elita One had been equal to him in nearly all ways; Chromia had been her right hand in all efforts and was thus not to be underestimated.

Taking care as he did so, Optimus found Chromia's mediports and connected the remote unit. It fed in a trickle charge of current and preset commands to cause Chromia's system to reboot while he waited at a respectful distance. He kept his fields tight to his frame as he did so, blocking out memories of stolen moments when he and Ironhide were able to be with their consorts during those early days of the war. This would be an interview between a Prime and a Cybertronian, not Optimus and a friend.

The femme's weaponry and shields were fully online before her optics blazed to life, not surprisingly to Prime, but he made no move and she sat up to face him with a wary appraisal.

"You may disconnect the remote, Chromia. I have sustenance as well, for you, once you are ready to ingest it." While the 'energon' they used here in the Terran system was not truthfully energon as they knew it, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Que, and others had modified and manipulated the various sources of energy available to produce a liquid fuel that satisfied most of their needs. Energon donations were still used, though, from healthy mechs for those who had suffered severe injuries or who reached their space on the verge of stasis lock from starvation. That had been all too common in the earlier years of the peace.

"Am I a prisoner?" Chromia asked, even as she plucked the cables from her ports.

"Pending the outcome of this briefing, possibly," Prime told her, without dissembling or attempting to lie to her.

Chromia laughed harshly. "You gave up on even learning to lie, didn't you, Optimus?"

"That has no bearing currently," Prime answered her. "What is of importance is whether I can trust you at large, when your position toward Ratchet leaves me hesitant for sake of the safety of the Cybertronian people." The noise she made could only be termed vulgar, but then, she and Ironhide had matched too well at times, Prime reminded himself. "Chromia." He instilled all of his authority in that one use of her designation, trying to pull her around into something approaching open.

"Slag off, Prime. You betrayed us all when you accepted terms with that pit-spawned, glitch-ridden wreck!" Chromia snapped out at him.

"I did not accept terms," Prime informed her. "I gave them."

"Then why is he on Cybertron?!" Chromia demanded. "Why is our home world overrun by Decepticons?!"

Prime shook his helm. "Bluntly, he had more mech power to begin setting it right, and I was not going to let him destroy the sentients of this system to plunder it, gain resources, and return to his ways of conquering while we Autobots used all of our own on our home world."

Those calm, even words held a logic that Prowl would have been proud to hear, no matter how poorly it set with Chromia to admit it. This system was apparently rich enough to support their kind in numbers, given how few Autobots had come to Cybertron under the peace that supposedly existed. How much of that peace was truthfully an unwillingness to fight and not just a need to regroup?

"He gets to slaughter our people, my class, and get away with it?" she asked, clinging to her righteous rage.

"You think the extinction of our race that would have resulted, probably by this point in time, would have been worth continuing to fight, when we had a solution to end the war on?" Optimus countered, still cool and careful in his words.

"Lies."

"Eighty three percent of the allied and colony worlds have failed to answer diplomatic overtures, either due to lack of resources, or annihilation. Current numbers of the Cybertronian-derived population scattered through the galaxy is estimated at only five to six percent of pre-war numbers." He surged forward, so he was nearer her to make his point with optic to optic contact, having found it was an effective technique to adopt from his organic partners. "Tell me again we were not on the verge of extinction!"

Chromia reared back from him as those numbers fell into place. Some of those colony worlds had been thriving with adapted Cybertronian lineages. A few had even produced synthetic versions of energon that were nearly indistinguishable from that produced by Cybertron and its inhabitants. To hear how few of them, how few of the mechs survived…

"How many classes are down to one survivor because of him? Or worse?" she demanded, trying desperately to hold on to her anger, for it was her fuel.

Optimus Prime stepped back, canting his helm slightly. "Ratchet told you of Ironhide… and failed to mention Arcee."

The effect was immediate. This time it was not anger lancing through all her fields, but grief and worry, and the tiniest shred of hope. "I cannot feel her," Chromia said, anchoring on that factor as a chance he was lying, yet Optimus Prime did not generally deign to lie. Jazz did that for him, when needed.

Prime pulled a cube from his subspace compartment, handing it over, pleased when she numbly accepted it in her shock. "She was severely damaged, but managed to escape the experiments performed on her. It caused the hard-light projections she had been capable of to become true splits from her, making her quite unique. Unfortunately, the two were destroyed in the final battle against the Fallen. It took her much time to recover, and thus she was not at the final battle against the Decepticons. But she exists still. She is currently on mission in the human's Science Outpost on this world." He fixed his optics on her face once more. "She gave us the report of your deactivation. And… Elita's." Even this far removed from it, Optimus Prime's voice shook with the great emotion behind it. He had never meant to fall in love with the femme leader, only meaning to pledge a political bond.

She'd taken his spark more fiercely than Megatron's blade.

"My frame was discarded," Chromia said. "I never found anything of hers, once I had been salvaged."

"Junkions?"

Chromia nodded, fists clenching. "I hate them," she admitted. "I got free, though, sorted as much of my memories out as I could, and got myself to Cybertron. Only…it was broken, and Megatron held power."

"The data and images he sent back to me did make me second guess myself, on my decision for us to remain here. However, other species were noticing this area, and that was our fault as well." Prime forced himself not to think about any wild hopes for Elita One's survival. He'd been granted two escapes from death's grip in the form of Ironhide and Jazz. "Once I had space-faring Autobots here, and the working communication bridge, we settled for sending materials and energy harvested here."

"That's where the extra rations came from," Chromia commented, clearing up one mystery. She then firmed her resolve. "I want Arcee."

"Do I have your word to stay in here in our settlement, and maintain peace, no matter who you encounter?"

Chromia shook her helm. "Leave me in here, Prime, until I have seen my cohort mate. Then I will choose."

Prime let her feel his wish for peace with her, as well as his distaste for imprisoning her. "As you wish. I will recall Arcee immediately." He took out a second cube and left it for her, before going to do just that, and to be available for when Path Finder returned from Earth with Kup, Ultra Magnus, and William Lennox.

`~`~`~`~`

Ironhide lounged indolently as the ship slowed for landing, stroking a hand along her decking from his place on it. "Still thought you were pulling my plugs, back then," he told Kup. "But, guess you weren't, since we're coming to meet one," he added.

"I'm still wrapping my head around an entire city being one of you guys. And what's this Deputy Protector nonsense?" Will asked on the heels of Ironhide's comment. He was rather glad he had been able to pry his wheeled partner away from Annabelle and her family, new as the baby was. Will was betting it had more to do with Path Finder being their ship home, which meant Ratchet was back from his mission to Cybertron.

Kup made a snorting noise from his own seat, where he'd made Ultra Magnus be his back rest, to the more stuffy officer's protests until he'd realized he was not going to win against the senior member of his cohort.

"Time was, a colony got a pair of dedicated leaders, same as Cybertron, and only one step below them," Kup said. "Metroplex must remember that. Logically, if Prime's here, and rust-bucket's there, then Prime's got to have a Deputy Protector, and supposedly rust-bucket would have a Deputy Prime on Cybertron. As such, you get to help set the keys to the city, so to speak."

"Why me?" Will asked.

"You're a representative of the native life form," Ultra Magnus answered. "But you are also a warrior, which is a criteria for becoming a Protector. As Prime's cohort already, you were the most logical choice, given the ties Prime is intent on building between our species."

"Even if people see us as freaks? Or subversive agents? Puppets?" Will had heard all the shouts and anger and fear concerning those of the humans that had been changed by continuous exposure to spark energy. It wasn't like he or the others could hide the lack of aging. Hopefully, though, his little girl's research would help ease those tensions. She was a cellular specialist, somewhere between a biologist and a Cybertronian engineer, looking to unlock the secrets of what spark energy actually did to the humans it affected.

"You still manage to handle the government capably," Ultra Magnus told him. "And while the sentiment is there, no one has protested our embassy in quite some time."

"Not since we sent that fleet from … Regula? packing," Kup pointed out smugly.

"Maybe if I just look on it as a promotion, like when I was in service, it will stop seeming too big for me," Will told them.

"If it comes with a raise, I want some of that high-end wax Sideswipe's been using," Ironhide teased his partner as Path Finder set down careful as ever. Will swatted him, lightly, and then unbuckled from his seat.

"Buy your own, penny pincher." He rested a hand on the bulkhead of the ship. "Thanks, Path."

"Of course, Will. It's always a pleasure," Path Finder told him, even as the three Autobots commed their own gratitude to her formally. She preened at them in reply; it was nice to be able to be so useful to those who were closely related to her kind.

The four returning from Earth stepped off their conveyance and out into the bay to find Optimus waiting. None of them missed the brief flicker of annoyance that flicked through Optimus's fields on Ironhide exiting last. That put Will on guard, and Ironhide straightened to look at his Prime with a frown.

::What? You didn't expect me to stay there when I saw who was picking us up? What's wrong with Ratchet that you didn't tell me he was home?::

The demand assaulted Optimus before he could fully shutter his processor's workings from his old friend, and the flicker of worry was too much for Ironhide to ignore, pushing deeper into the cohort link.

::Slagging, overgrown nanny-bot!:: Ratchet growled at being contacted by Ironhide though it, before he processed that Ironhide was on planet. ::Do you ever do what you're supposed to, Ironhide?!::

::What in the PITS is going on?!:: the warrior demanded, even as Optimus spoke out loud.

"Will, good to see you again. Kup, Magnus..." The leader ignored his warrior for the moment as Ironhide and Ratchet locked into arguing mode with one another via the cohort frequency. He took the hands of both the elder pair of Cybertronians. "I hope Hot Rod and Springer settled in quickly from being sent back down."

"Those two!" Kup's affectionate exasperation came through clearly.

"Springer will keep Hot Rod in line," Magnus told them both, as they fell in to follow Prime once he had lifted Will up to his shoulder.

Ironhide followed, looking vaguely rebellious but obeying whatever decree Ratchet had put in place. That let Prime show them all around, so they could grow accustomed to the changes Metroplex was making in the city, before he took them down to the focal room Metroplex had created for communicating most directly with him.

"Merciful mech, but this is gorgeous," Kup whispered as they entered the room with its shining, reflective surfaces and the orb suspended from the ceiling, well out of reach of even Prime or Magnus, but visible and scintillating.

"Greetings, Director Kup. Force Leader Ultra Magnus. Guardian Ironhide. Protector William Lennox. And Optimus Prime." The voice pulsed into them all as fully as the thick fields of the mech they inhabited did. Will slowly realized the orb was actually Metroplex's spark chamber, and it filled him with even more awe.

"Nice to meet ya," Kup said, resting a hand on on of the walls before the floor shimmered and adequate chairs formed for each of them. "Ain't you just a hospitable mech."

"I try," Metroplex told him with a rumble of pleasure.

They each took a seat, Optimus letting Will down so he could walk to his seat upon a raised portion of the floor under his own power, and watched as a sixth chair and mech image formed for them to focus on. Optimus took in the others' reactions, having witnessed Metroplex's hospitality protocols before now. The mech in the sixth chair looked stiffer, built more like Kup in its blockier design, but it was obviously a rendition of Metroplex's self on a scale they could all interact with.

"Now, shall we set in place the security measures we need to be certain all stays safe?" Metroplex asked kindly, the mech-holo form projecting a sincere wish to safeguard them all.

"Let's do this," Will agreed, pushing aside awe, pushing aside Optimus's choice to make him his co-leader, in order to protect those he cared for a little bit better.

`~`~`~`~`

Monique wasn't home yet when the door sounded, and Bobby got himself off the couch to answer it. He kept looking back over his shoulder at the game, blessing Wheeljack for setting up a relay signal to catch Earth's television, even if it was out of date by the time it got to Espera... Metroplex. Bobby chided his own head, getting the new designation locked in as he opened the door... to see his best friend standing there.

"Man, Path would get back on my day off!" he complained, before throwing open his smile and arms, a quick bro-hug and back-pounding to welcome Will in. "Come on, man. You've got to check out the latest brews we've made down here."

"Trust you to have an in with the brewery," Will laughed at him as he came in, looking around. "You and Monique really have settled down, haven't you?"

"I forget, you just come Tee Dee Why up this way. Man, I live here now, and to be honest? I ain't missing nothing from Earthside." Bobby whipped his head around on a motion out of the corner of his eye, just in time to see the game winning throw. "YES!"

"Even got cable. Want to know who wins the championship?" Will teased, settling into a chair as Bobby went to grab a brew for them both.

"Nah, man. We've got our own betting pools up here, and it wouldn't be fair." Knowing the outcome of a bet took too much of the fun out for Bobby's tastes. He came back, handed his buddy a bottle made out of local glass, then dropped onto his couch. "How's it feel to be partnered with the Big Guy? That's why they brought you up here, right?"

Will sighed out loud. "I'd rather go back to changing diapers," he admitted. "Feels like a ton of weight, even if its mostly formality."

"How is the baby, and her baby?" Bobby asked, to give Will a chance to unspool on a topic less stressful.

"Annabelle's already back to work, and someone in the gaggle of eggheads is on baby duty most of the time," Will said. "I know she was raised with rather open ideas on family, but I'm still getting it through my head that even if I had the right to a shotgun wedding, I have no idea which one is the baby's dad. They all claim the baby girl for their own, even the other women, in that bunch."

"Different generation, man," Bobby said with a snort. He was rather glad none of his own had saddled him with a grandkid yet. "All the rave to do a contract instead of get married, I noticed. Have to look over the applications up here as part of my job."

Will laughed; they both knew they hated paperwork, even if it was all electronic now.

"Seriously, you dealing?" Bobby asked.

Will considered, and then nodded. "Yeah. Hard not to, when you can lean on _his_ shoulders."

"Amen to that."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Not Alone Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/342036) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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